[WHY] 'Do this to conceive a daughter': Korea’s newfound obsession with baby girls

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Kim Chae-min, a 34-year-old newlywed trying to conceive, has made meat and fish staples of her diet while putting her husband on a decidedly greener regimen.

Believe it or not, even sex is scheduled with precision. Their goal? Having a baby, and it “has to be a girl,” in Kim’s words.

Lists promising ways to conceive baby girls are now ubiquitous across Korean social media, with Korean couples increasingly favoring daughters, a sharp cultural turn in a country once known for its deeply entrenched preference for sons.

Doctors and practitioners of traditional Korean medicine have even introduced supposedly “scientific” tactics to encourage conceiving daughters, such as placing smartphones near the man's body.

In fact, Korea ranked as the No. 1 country in daughter preference in a survey by Gallup International of roughly 45,000 people across 44 countries at the end of 2024, which asked whether respondents would prefer a boy, a girl, or no preference if they could have only one child.

Some 28 percent of Koreans said they preferred to have a daughter, ahead of Japan, Spain and the Philippines at 26 percent and Bangladesh at 24 percent. By comparison, only 15 percent of Koreans said they preferred having a son, with the remaining respondents stating they had no preference. It’s a striking reversal over just three decades, as the same survey conducted in 1992 showed that 58 percent of Koreans preferred a son over a daughter.

Q. Why does it have to be a girl?

For many young couples, the answer is instinctive rather than ideological. Daughters, they say, stay closer — they call more, notice more, stay more emotionally present.

Sons are often described, half-jokingly, as harder to read and easier to drift away.

There is also a practical layer. In many households, child care is supported by the wife’s parents. Family life often runs through the maternal line — so a daughter feels more like continuity and less like departure.

Overall, women show a strong preference for daughters: In the Gallup survey, nearly half of Korean women in their 30s and 40s said they would choose a daughter.

The old case for sons in Korea was mostly practical — children were expected to support aging parents financially. But that assumption has faded sharply, and today, few parents expect any financial support at all. Their expectations have instead shifted elsewhere, toward emotional closeness.

“Young people’s economic capacity is too weak for parents to expect any financial support anymore,” said Prof. Kim Yun-tae, who teaches public sociology at Korea University. “That removes the old reason for preferring sons. What remains is emotional connection like daughters who check in more often, talk more, stay closer.”

In a survey by Hanyang University on 125 primary caregivers of dementia patients in 2023, 82.4 percent were women, compared to just 17.6 percent men. Similarly, daughters made up the largest share of family caregivers at 42.4 percent, ahead of daughters-in-law at 16.8 percent, who even surpass the families' own sons at 15.2 percent.

Are there other social issues at play? Like low birth rates?

Yes, it also ties directly into Korea’s deeper demographic problem of low birthrates. As more young couples decide to have only one child — or none at all — the “if it’s just one, make it a girl” mindset becomes more pronounced. 

Korea’s fertility rate fell to 0.8 in 2025, among the lowest in the world.

Around 62 percent of adults of 1,000 people agreed that “having at least one daughter is necessary” compared to 36 percent for sons in a 2024 Hankook Research survey.

“I wasn’t even sure I wanted kids, but my husband and I decided on one, and now, we’re just hoping it’s a girl,” said Yoo, a 32-year-old engineer in Gyeonggi. “I won’t have a second baby for sure — and I keep hesitating in case it turns out to be a boy.”

Another factor is how much family life itself has changed. Unlike in the past, when mothers were typically full-time caregivers at home, most women today are in the work force.

In dual-income households, daughters are often described as calmer, easier to raise and less demanding in day-to-day care.

Is the shift reflected in the actual sex ratio?

Yes, the share of baby girls has been steadily rising.

The number of boys born per 100 girls was 116.5 in 1990, a clear imbalance favoring sons, according to data from Statistics Korea. But then this ratio steadily declined to 113.6 in 1992, 110.1 in 2000, 107.8 in 2005, 106.4 in 2008, and 105.1 in 2023. In 2024, it stood at 105.0, which places it comfortably within the “natural” range of 103 to 107.

In other words, the longtime tilt toward sons has largely normalized since the late 2000s.

“People have increasingly come to recognize, through lived experience, that daughters often play a more active emotional role within families than sons,” said Cho Young-tae, professor at the Graduate School of Public Health at Seoul National University. “That perception will likely sustain daughter preference going forward.”

“But it is important to distinguish preference from rejection; This is not about disliking sons," Cho added. “The sex ratio today remains broadly normal, hovering around 104 to 106 boys per 100 girls each year.”

So, what exactly are these methods for having a girl?

There are plenty. The most popular theory holds that men exposed to more electromagnetic waves are more likely to father daughters. For that reason, some men are deliberately told to carry smartphones in their pockets. 

The basic logic of that claim is that women carry XX chromosomes while men carry XY ones. X-bearing sperm produce girls; Y-bearing sperm produce boys. X sperm are believed to survive longer, while Y sperm are considered faster but more fragile. Since some studies suggest electromagnetic exposure can reduce sperm count and mobility, believers argue that the hardier X sperm are more likely to “win” the race to fertilize a woman's eggs.

The theory created its own joke in Korea that ultimate “girl-dad” professions are pro gamer, radiologist and semiconductor engineer.

Also, a million-selling U.S. book, “How to Choose the Sex of Your Baby” by Landrum Shettles, a pioneering American obstetrician-gynecologist, remains surprisingly popular among Korean couples trying to conceive.

The so-called Shettles Method argues that those hoping for daughters should have sex two to three days before ovulation, adding that the success rate rises up to 80 percent if the timing is followed precisely.

The advice gets even more elaborate online. Women hoping for daughters are told to eat acidic foods like pork, eggs and fish, while husbands are encouraged toward vegetables, nuts, fruit and dairy.

Men are advised to keep their bodies warm — the opposite of the usual recommendation for sperm health.

“What this daughter preference really shows is that despite Korea’s severely low birthrate, the country has not moved toward the kind of extreme individualism or anti-marriage culture seen in the West,” Prof. Kim said. “Family-oriented values are still very strong here.”

BY SARAH CHEA [[email protected]]